Africa: Elementary, Dear Watson - One Computer's Plan to Save Africa

We all knew the machines would take over eventually - we just didn't realise it would be quite so soon. With Africa needing a "fix", IBM thinks that its supercomputer Watson has the answer. Will artificial intelligence succeed where humans have failed? By SIMON ALLISON.

Meet Watson.

Watson is a computer - a supercomputer, to be precise - but he's got a lot more personality than your average, run-of-the-mill desktop.

He's the pinnacle, so far, of humanity's development of and interaction with artificial intelligence. Think of him as Siri on a lot of steroids - a vast processing unit that couples advanced data-mining techniques with a unique cognitive ability, allowing it to understand and respond to sophisticated human queries.

Remember this introduction, because if IBM get their way, we Africans will be hearing a lot more from Watson in the future.

IBM has just put $100 million into a ten-year project to bring Watson to (or at least make his intelligence available within) the African continent.

"In the last decade, Africa has been a tremendous growth story - yet the continent's challenges, stemming from population growth, water scarcity, disease, low agricultural yield and other factors are impediments to inclusive economic ...

AllAfrica publishes around 2,000 reports a day from more than 130 news organizations and over 200 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 2000 news and information items daily from over 130 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Lagos, Monrovia, Nairobi and Washington DC.